Dosing Schedule / Alk swing

[Johnson556]

Hi All,

For about 6 months now I have been dosing ESV B-Ionic 2 part in my with monthly water changes using RS Coral Pro.

Thank is a 90G with a 20G sump and ATS

My dosing schedule is/was as follows:
Alk -> Midnight to 6AM for a total of 66ML
Calcium -> 10AM to 3PM for a total of 66ML

My Alk averages 8.5, and would drop to 8 dKH during the day, Calcium is at 430PPM with a 10PPM drop in 24 Hours.

Well, in the midst of building this 180G I got lazy with testing and water changes. Came back from NYC this weekend and noticed the tips on my Acros where white and had algae growing on them. Not good. Tested everything.

Nitrates came out at around 10PPM, Phosphates .05, dKH 9.4 and Calcium 405PPM, clearly my lack of focus and testing has came back to bite me. I also added about 5 good sized acros since my last dosing calibration. Clearly threw things off.

My question is, should I continue my current dosing schedule or switch to a 24 hour spread for both. I will be switching to a calcium reactor for the 180G.

I was thinking about dosing 6ml of each every other hour. Alk would dose from Midnight to 7PM, and Calc would dose from 4AM to 10PM, both totaling the 66ml for each. The purpose, to ease the Alk and PH swings.

I have attached a photo of my PH swings at well, in 24Hrs it swings from 8.2 to 8.4.

 

[RogerO]

I use a calcium reactor now, but when I was dosing ,I used ESV B-Ionic as well, and it was 24/7 using a doser alk and calcium were 15 min apart.
Never had an alk swing,

 

[this is me]

I don't play the target dosing hour to please the PH game. Spread it across the 24hr clock. ALK, CA, MG are much more important than your PH. They also stabilize your PH when they're stable.